I like my life. I like what I do and I like where I live. But isn't it fun, every now and then, to imagine yourself somewhere else, doing something different? For some people it may be a tropical paradise they dream of .... for me it's the Yorkshire Dales.

Yes, I can see me now, drinking tea by the open fire inside my thatched cottage, while my three children, with their windswept hair and ruddy cheeks, chase the chickens around our extensive acreage. "A lovely day for a jaunt," I think. So I hop on my bicycle, say Cheerio to the children (it's the Yorkshire Dales, they'll be fine) and ride toward the village shops. Being neighbourly, I stop by Fred and Flossie Thompson's farm. You see, their only son, Frederick Jr, tired of the farming life, went to the big city to work as a barista in one of those new fangled coffee shops so I thought I'd see if Fred and Flossie (an elderly couple) would be needing anything while I was out. They did ... but first, we had tea. (I drink lots of tea while living on the Yorkshire Dales.) We chat for hours. (The kids are fine). Then Fred and Flossie give me their list:

tea, English Breakfast
tea, Orange Pekoe
tea, Earl Grey
sugar, 2lbs
milk, lots
white bread, one loaf
butter (creamery whipped), 4lbs

Apparently that's all they need to survive. I hop back on my bicycle and head to the village, hoping my quaint wicker basket on the front is big enough to hold the load. I wind down country roads breathing in cow manure. Ahhh, this is the life. I come across a pub. Three pints of ale and a Ploughman's lunch later I'm back on the road, but I don't know where I'm going or why. I find my way back to the cottage. My husband greets me at the end of the lane and asks me where the hell I've been - the kids have been stuck in the henhouse for hours and the thatched roof almost went up in smoke due to the unattended wood fire that had been raging out of control.

Hmmm. Perhaps such dreams are best left to a less overactive imagination.